The Neatgear NeoTV follows a more specialist path to streaming nirvana. It comes with next-to-no services built-in (unless you count Flickr and YouTube) and rarely holds your hand through the setup process or day-to-day usage.

Its menus are a far cry from the slickness of many rivals, and it won’t download and arrange album artwork for you.

But what the Netgear will do is play almost any digital media file you can throw at it, delivered almost any way you can think of, thanks to eSata, USB and SD inputs plus support for a prodigious range of music and video files.

High-quality options such as FLAC and MKV are on the agenda, and the NeoTV 550 even outputs HD audio.

It also has an array of analogue audio and video outputs.

More after the break

Performance is consistently decent, with especially good motion handling and a punchy, energetic sound.

So, the Netgear’s a good buy. If only it tried a little harder to make your life easier…